A year to the day after kicking off his re-election campaign at Ohio State University, President Barack Obama returned to the college campus and told graduates that only through vigorous participation in their “democracy” can they right an ill-functioning government and break through relentless cynicism about the nation’s future.

Obama also urged the students to “reject these voices” that warn of the evils of government, saying:

Still, you’ll hear voices that incessantly warn of government as nothing more than some separate, sinister entity that’s the root of all our problems, even as they do their best to gum up the works; or that tyranny always lurks just around the corner. You should reject these voices. Because what they suggest is that our brave, creative, unique experiment in self-rule is just a sham with which we can’t be trusted.

We have never been a people who place all our faith in government to solve our problems, nor do we want it to. But we don’t think the government is the source of all our problems, either. Because we understand that this democracy is ours. As citizens, we understand that America is not about what can be done for us. It’s about what can be done by us, together, through the hard and frustrating but absolutely necessary work of self-government.

[…]

The cynics may be the loudest voices—but they accomplish the least. It’s the silent disruptors—those who do the long, hard, committed work of change—that gradually push this country in the right direction, and make the most lasting difference. [Emphasis added]

Interesting. Obama said that those who warn others to be on the lookout for government tyranny run counter to the reason this “brave, and creative, and unique experiment in self-rule” called the United States of America was formed, when in fact a stand against government tyranny is precisely why this country came into existence. Can somebody please flick the paradox switch on the teleprompter to the “off” position?

Thomas Paine wrote about the “government and society should be a single entity” approach in Common Sense, and concluded the two should never be indistinguishable:

“Some writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by wickedness; the former promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections, the latter negatively by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher. Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one;”

1. We need no further proof to justify a chorus of horse-laughter over his claim to being a Constitutional scholar. Because a Constitutional scholar would have read a book or two. Specifically, say, the Federalist Papers and the Anti-Federalist Papers. He would’ve seen that the nation was extremely concerned about tyranny in America in the run-up to the ratification of the federal Constitution. Indeed, those on the Anti-Federalist side seem more like prophets with each passing day, as they were convinced that the new Constitution would not, in fact, keep tyranny from happening here. Warning about government tyranny is practically the sine qua non of the American experiment.

President Reagan spoke as an American in this honorable tradition when he quipped that the scariest words in our language were, “We’re from the government and we’re here to help.” Mr. Obama speaks those words in earnest, like he really means them, and wonders why anyone would be nervous about it.

2. I really have no idea who he’s talking about, these mysterious voices warning of tyranny lurking around the corner. Everyone I know who is paying any attention is aware that tyranny is here right now, out in the open! I wish we lived in a time when tyrants were still afraid to show themselves!

If the goal is to save lives, liability insurance isn’t going to do it. But of course, this isn’t really about saving lives. It’s about control. It’s about putting up as many hurdles as they can think of between the average, law-abiding American and their right to self-defense.

I’ve heard some liberals excuse Obama’s frequent vacations by saying “Reagan and Bush used to go back to their ranches all the time.” Exactly. Those ranches were their own private property, and the only expense was security. No hotel bills, no lavish parties, no celebrity entertainment, no room service.

The Obamas, on the other hand, choose to vacation in the most expensive accommodations at the most exotic destinations that have NOTHING to do with building foreign relations.

In the first three months of the year, members of the first family have been on three vacations, averaging a vacation a month. And now it’s being reported that the first daughters are on a spring break vacation in the Bahamas.

The Obamas began the new year in Hawaii. “President Obama departed Hawaii this morning for Washington, after spending NINE days vacationing with family and friends in his native state. Here’s a quick look at how he spent his vacation,” ABC reported on January 6, 2013.

[…] Then the first lady and their daughters vacationed in Aspen over President’s Day weekend. “First Lady Michelle Obama arrived in Aspen on Friday afternoon and is here with her daughters for a ski vacation,” Aspendailynews.com reported in February. “Few details about her trip were available. Sources said she is staying at the home of Jim and Paula Crown, owners of the Aspen Skiing Co. She is reportedly skiing at Buttermilk today, where the Crowns, of Chicago, own a home on the Tiehack side.”

While the rest of the family was in Colorado, Obama went to Florida for a golf weekend. […]

Even First Daughters Sasha and Malia need a break — a spring break, to be exact — from the White House every once in a while. The sisters and mom Michelle escaped the cold wintry weather of Washington, D.C. in favor of sun and surf in the Bahamas on a recent trip, a source tells Us Weekly exclusively.

The siblings made the most of their vacation at the Reef Atlantis, the source says. In addition to soaking up the sun at the family-friendly cabanas and swimming with dolphins, Sasha, 11, and Malia, 14, also got the chance to dance the night away at CRUSH, Atlantis’ teen club, on Sunday, March 24.

In America, we’ve prided ourselves on abandoning those privileges of class some 237 years ago, following that little uprising in the 13 colonies.

And we again congratulated ourselves at 12:01 pm Eastern Time on January 20, 2009, just moments after Barack Obama was sworn in as the 44th president of the United States and as he committed to making his administration the most transparent and open in history.

But more than four years later it is time to ask questions. The most transparent administration ever? The most transparently political, yes. The most open government? If you have the money to buy access, yes.

Since last weekend, Mr and Mrs Regular Citizen have been denied the access people used to be granted to tour the White House, purportedly because of the clampdown on federal spending since the “sequester” that imposed cuts across the board.

These tours, most recently guided by volunteers though monitored by paid Secret Service staff, have been an American tradition since John and Abigail Adams, the first White House residents, personally hosted receptions for the public.

And their cancellation is an austerity measure that saves a pittance, while more frivolous taxpayer funding for items like the White House dog walker continues.

Meanwhile, noble Americans can buy time with the president for a suggested donation of $500,000 to his new campaign group, Organising for Action.

Yes, the announcement offering access to the president for cold, hard cash was made openly and with total transparency. But it was also made without shame.

It’s the third version of Obama’s original monster campaign machine, Obama for America, which then morphed into a re-election campaign machine, Organising for America, on the third day of his first term.

It has now re-launched again as Organising for Action (OFA) – a non-profit, tax-exempt group headed by his former campaign advisers. Apparently no longer “for America”, the group might just as well be called Organising for Obama’s Agenda.

Its mission: to support the president in his attempt to achieve enactment of gun control, environmental policies and immigration reform.

Hmmm…could it be that the reason people think the GOP is ‘out of touch’ is that they keep ignoring the American people’s concerns about massive debt, out-of-control spending, the erosion of constitutional liberties, and massive power-grabs like Obamacare?

Karl Rove has founded an organization for the specific purpose of bulldozing Tea Party candidates and replacing them with those hand-picked by the GOP establishment.

House Speaker Boehner has caved on Obamacare, illegal immigration, and a host of other issues, and even says that “trusts Obama completely.” WTH???

I believe that the disappointing results for Republicans in the 2006 elections and probably the 2012 elections, as well, were in no small part attributable to frustrated conservatives staying at home.

The thinking among many conservatives has been that the party has consistently fallen short by failing to restrain the growth of the ever-expanding federal government and by failing to nominate sufficiently conservative presidential nominees. That is, if we would just nominate and elect Reagan conservatives and govern on Reagan principles, we would recapture majority status in no time.

The main opposing view — call it the establishment view — holds that Republicans need to accept that the reign of small government is over, get with the program and devise policies to make the irreversibly enormous government smarter and more energetic. In other words, Republicans need to surrender to the notion that liberalism’s concept of government has won and rejigger their agenda toward taming the leviathan rather than shrinking it.

I’d feel better if the ongoing competition between Reagan conservatives and establishment Republicans were the only big fissure in the GOP right now, but there are other cracks that threaten to break wide open, too. Our problems transcend our differing approaches to the size and scope of government and to fiscal and other economic issues.

Reagan conservatism is no longer under attack from just establishment Republicans; it’s also under attack from many inside the conservative movement itself. Reagan conservatism is a three-legged stool of fiscal, foreign policy and social issues conservatism. But today many libertarian-oriented conservatives are singing from the liberal libertine hymnal that the GOP needs to remake its image as more inclusive, more tolerant, less judgmental and less strident. In other words, it needs to lighten up and quit opposing gay marriage, at least soften its position on abortion, and get on board the amnesty train to legalize illegal immigrants. I won’t even get into troubling foreign policy divisions among so-called neocons, so-called isolationists and those who simply believe we should conduct our foreign policy based foremost on promoting our strategic national interests.

[…] I belong to the school that believes the Republican Party must remain the party of mainstream Reagan conservatism rather than try to become a diluted version of the Democratic Party. This does not mean Republicans can’t come up with creative policy solutions when advisable, but it does mean that conservatism is based on timeless principles that require no major revisions. Conservatives are champions of freedom, the rule of law and enforcement of the social compact between government and the people enshrined in the Constitution, which imposes limitations on government in order to maximize our liberties. If we reject these ideas, then we have turned our backs on what America means and what has made America unique. What’s the point of winning elections if the price is American exceptionalism?

The Republican National Committee released earlier on Monday an “autopsy” of its 2012 election failures and pinned the blame on the party being out of touch with voters, particularly minorities.

Limbaugh said the opposite was true. “We are in touch with the founding of this country. We are in touch with the greatness in this country and its people,” the popular radio commentator said, according to Politico.

Limbaugh said that if the party moves away from championing values, such as traditional marriage, it will lose support among its base.

“If the party makes that [gay marriage] something official that they support, they’re not going to pull the homosexual activist voters away from the Democrat Party, but they are going to cause their base to stay home and throw their hands up in utter frustration,” Limbaugh said.

Limbaugh said it was party leaders who were out of touch with its own base.

The Republican Party is violating time-tested, basic principles of sales and marketing. That’s why the GOP is failing to communicate its messages. On Monday, the Republican National Committee released a massive reform strategy, whimsically labeled an “autopsy” or “reboot,” to completely overhaul the GOP. Like Democrats in 1992, Republicans are growing hungry to win in 2014 and 2016.

Here is what is wrong with the Republican Party. This author taught in a sales training seminar firm in Eastern Europe, International Trendsetters. The solutions are overwhelmingly time-tested and proven in real life. This is not theory. Republicans are chronically making classic rookie sales mistakes.

“FAB” — Features, Advantages, Benefits. You must explain how a policy benefits the voter. Bad salesmen talk about features — the radio has a better tuner. Good salesmen talk about how the radio benefits the customer — you will enjoy the music more and set a better mood for your love interest because it sounds better and clearer. People don’t buy a mattress. They buy a good night’s sleep. And maybe good décor.

On Monday, RNC Chairman Reince Priebus explained that we must talk about how Americans benefit from low taxes and lower national debt. We have to talk about how Republican policies will put more people to work, at higher salaries, improve our economy, and strengthen our country. Republicans talk about details — lower taxes, lower regulations, lower deficits. We fail to explain why those details actually matter to the voter.

But isn’t it obvious? No. Classic rookie mistake. It’s obvious to you if you spend lots of time thinking about these things. It’s not obvious to busy people who have other things to think about, which they feel are more important in their lives. Yes, you have to draw them a map.

There is an imbalance between the speaker who is extremely familiar with a topic and the listener who isn’t. The speaker needs to understand how the speaker really sounds to the listener. Republicans skip over too many steps and assume too much. The American voters are smart. But they haven’t spent as much time thinking about your topic as you have. We have to be able to empathize with the busy listener and even remember how we were when we first learned about these issues.

It is amazing that the GOP has been so bad at this, when Ronald Reagan was so good at it. If anyone is thinking of running for office, Step #1 is to listen to every speech Ronald Reagan ever gave. Several times. Reagan “got” it. Then the GOP lost it.

Next, the mind abhors a vacuum. What you don’t say can and will be used against you in the court of public opinion. People have never stopped talking about cuts in education, even while education spending soars year after year. People will assume you want to help the rich by lowering taxes. They will assume you hate immigrants. They will assume you want women barefoot and pregnant. If you don’t explain how GOP policies benefit the listener, their minds will fill in the vacuum with other explanations. If you don’t provide a reason, their minds will provide one for you.

Third, love objections. This is one of the most powerful principles good salesmen know. We view objections with dread. A voter tells you why they don’t like the GOP. Time-tested sales techniques have proven that objections are opportunities. When a prospect tells you what he is concerned about, you now have the opportunity to address his or her concerns.

This is especially true when a voter believes something that isn’t true about Republicans — if they are willing to talk to you, that is. Proven sales experience shows that when someone is willing to tell you their negative views, and talk to you about it, you have an open door to dramatically turn around their perceptions.

Of course you have to treat them as a future friend, not as a current enemy. But the overwhelming majority of successful sales are closed after the third or fourth objection. That’s right, most sales succeed after not just the first negative response, but after several negative issues are raised and discussed. But you have to care about the other person as much as you care about yourself to answer their concerns fully, fairly, and respectfully.

Fourth, “ask for the order” as RNC Chairman Reince Priebus described on Monday. In other words, you have to show up. You are not going to win over any hearts or minds sitting in your office across the street from the Capitol South Metro station (the RNC headquarters). It is common sense that you have to go out and talk to Hispanics, Blacks, and other groups.

The GOP’s “outreach” efforts have often been embarrassing. Republican campaigns appoint leaders of, say, “Korean-Americans for Bush,” then order bumper stickers and campaign pins. And that’s about it. Pretending to be doing outreach, but not really, is a Republican specialty.

During a Thursday luncheon with Republicans, President Barack Obama reportedly was unable to dine on the lobster feast set before him. Daily Caller obtained audio of Collins explaining the reason why.

“He honestly did look longingly at it,” said Collins. “But apparently he has to have essentially a taster, and I pointed out to him that we were all tasters for him, that if the food had been poisoned all of us would have keeled over so, but he did look longingly at it and he remarked that we have far better food than the Democrats do, and I said that was because I was hosting.”

“University of Maine recipe for healthy lobster salad — I pointed that out to the president in keeping with the first lady’s initiatives and Fox Family Potato Chips made in Aroostook County where I’m from and wild blueberry pie full of anti-oxidants, see this was a healthy lunch as well. We did have a little ice cream on the pie too, also made in Maine, Gifford’s Ice Cream.”

I think this is a serious case of projection. If Obama honestly believes that people on the other side of the aisle would resort to poisoning him over political differences, it’s obviously because in his world, the ends justify the means, and he assumes that Republicans must be just as morally bankrupt and willing to resort to evil and violence as his team is.

Poor Obama. If only he were emperor, he could get so much done. Now he’s blaming his failures once again on the fact that we have this pesky constitutional republic that won’t allow him to act as a dictator:

“I am not a dictator,” President Obama said Friday while defending his efforts to stop the sequester. “I’m the president.”

Obama said there are limits to what he can do to get a deal on the sequester during a press conference in which he blamed Republicans for standing in the way of a deal.

President Obama yesterday outraged nerds everywhere when he committed sci-fi heresy by mixing up “Star Wars” and “Star Trek” in remarks about budget cuts.

Speaking at a White House press conference, Obama joked that he couldn’t use a “Jedi mind meld” to get Republicans to agree to his budget plan.

“I know that this has been some of the conventional wisdom that’s been floating around Washington, that somehow, even though most people agree that I’m being reasonable . . . the fact that [Republicans] don’t take it means that I should somehow do a Jedi mind meld with these folks and convince them to do what’s right,” the president said.

President Obama wished he could alternatively do a Jedi Death Grip on Conservatives, but that power was also not his to use. He concluded the press conference saying, “May the force be with you so you can live long and prosper.”

Democrats are preparing for a major nationwide fight on the gun issue by purging the party’s moderates–including the very candidates it cultivated in 2006 and 2008 to win seats in conservative districts. Republicans are preparing for a major debate on immigration reform by purging the party’s conservatives, casting opponents of bipartisan legislative efforts as bigots who will doom the party to ongoing electoral failure.

It is true that both parties have shown little tolerance towards moderates lately. Democrats began the purges in 2004, when the left netroots commandeered the Democratic National Committee elections. In 2006, the anti-war movement succeeded in defeating Sen. Joe Lieberman in the Democratic primary in Connecticut. In 2010, the Tea Party began defeating establishment, moderate Republicans in the GOP primaries before going on to wipe out the Blue Dog Democrats, finishing what the anti-war movement had already started. In effect, Capitol Hill today is divided not by two governing parties but two opposition movements, speaking past one another.

But the Democratic Party has managed to maintain a striking degree of party unity, even amidst grumbling and dissatisfaction with President Obama’s disappointing performance. It has done so primarily through Chicago-style carrot-and-stick patronage dished out by the White House, partly by demonizing Republicans, but also by defeating, silencing or otherwise co-opting the party’s moderates before going into big legislative battles.

[T]he pattern remains the same: the new, netroots-and-community-organizer Democratic leadership dispenses with party’s moderates, while the old Republican establishment tries to marginalize the grass roots conservatives who are largely responsible for the limited electoral successes the party has enjoyed in recent years.

The time for moderation is over. Obama and the Democrats are advancing the most extreme left-wing agenda in American history. From radical left-wing judges and cabinet appointments, to the most radical anti-liberty regulations and legislation ever imposed (Obamacare, HHS mandate, gun control, EPA…). They’ve helped radical Islamic jihadists in their conquest of the Middle East, and armed extremist drug cartels. They’re succeeding because they actually STAND for something – Socialism and the destruction of America as we know it – that their base firmly believes in.

Republicans can no longer afford to be “moderate.” It’s time to give Americans a REAL choice between liberty and tyranny. Block, defund, and filibuster the left-wing extremists at every turn. Run the most conservative, liberty-minded, fiscally responsible candidates, and advance a pro-liberty agenda: school choice, entitlement reform, REAL spending cuts and tax cuts, defunding Obamacare and agencies that impose extreme anti-business regulations, etc. It’s time to actually STAND for something. The time for moderation is over.

[H]ere is how the pitch goes: Obama can not enact his second-term agenda without significant help from outside groups. Those outside groups can channel resources through Obama’s old presidential re-election apparatus, which has now been rechristened “Organizing for America,” an IRS 501(c)4 tax-exempt “social welfare” organization.

The sole purpose of OFA will be to advance Obama’s policy agenda, and to that end, Obama will meet personally with OFA’s national advisory board in the White House at least four times a year. And, here is the money part: You too can become a member of the national advisory board for the bargain basement price of just $500,000. OFA hopes to become “a powerhouse national advocacy network” by selling such slots to wealthy donors and raising $50,000,000 this year.

If that isn’t selling access, then we don’t know what is. And it’s also a clear case of hypocrisy — of Obama doing precisely the thing for which he harshly criticized others, and with which he formed the very core of his political identity as a candidate of “change.”

Pressed to defend Obama’s hypocrisy, White House press secretary jay Carney insisted that OFA is an “independent organization” and that Obama meets with many independent organizations like environmentalists and labor unions all the time.

But none of those organizations exist for the sole stated purpose of, in Carney’s own words, “rallying support for the president’s policy agenda.” None of those organizations used to be Obama’s presidential campaign. And none of those organization can officially speak for the president, as OFA does through the authenticated @BarackObama Twitter account. No one who ponies up $500,000 to OFA is under any illusion that OFA would ever do anything the White House did not want it to.

The only way this should surprise anyone is if they bought the idea that a Chicago Machine politician would ride into Washington to clean up that one-horse town. What looks bad is the shock,shock that ensues when Obama reveals himself to be every bit a product of that Chicago environment.

Instead of learning from the repeated failures of running “progressive” GOP candidates, Karl Rove and the establishment Republicans once again prove that their primary objective is not to represent their conservative base, but to stay in power at all costs.

The good news is, they are threatened enough by the Tea Party to try and attack it. The bad news is, they may destroy the party and along with it, any chances of winning in 2014 and 2016.

We knew this was coming, no? A month ago, Politico reported that Senate Republicans were planning to intervene more aggressively in GOP primaries in hopes of clearing the field for their preferred candidates. A few days later, Steve LaTourette announced that the Republican Main Street Partnership was dropping “Republican” from its name and would intervene on behalf of centrist candidates from both parties in congressional elections. Now here comes Rove’s group, American Crossroads, pledging untold millions towards electing the most allegedly “electable” candidate in Republican primaries. No more Akins — and maybe no more Marco Rubios, Rand Pauls, and Ted Cruzes too?

The battle for the heart and soul of the Republican Party has begun. On one side is the Tea Party. On the other side stand Karl Rove and his establishment team, posing as tacticians while quietly undermining conservatism.

Yesterday, the New York Timesreported that the “biggest donors in the Republican Party” have joined forces with Karl Rove and Steven J. Law, president of American Crossroads, to create the Conservative Victory Project. The Times reports that this new group will dedicate itself to “recruit seasoned candidates and protect Senate incumbents from challenges by far-right conservatives and Tea Party enthusiasts who Republican leaders worry could complicate the party’s effort to win control of the Senate.” The group points to candidates like Christine O’Donnell in Delaware and Richard Mourdock in Indiana as examples of Tea Party primary picks going sideways in major Senatorial battles.

But it is American Crossroads and its ilk that have run the GOP into the ground. Spending millions of dollars on useless 30,000-ft. advertising campaigns during the last election cycle, training candidates to soften conservatism in order to appeal to “moderates,” blowing up the federal budget under George W. Bush as a bipartisan tactic – all of those strategies led the party to a disastrous defeat in 2012. The Tea Party, which may nominate losers from time to time, also brought the Republicans their historic 2010 Congressional victory. If Tea Party candidates lose, it’s because they weren’t good candidates; if GOP establishment candidates lose, it’s because they weren’t good conservatives. The choice for actual conservatives should be easy.

But it isn’t. The Bush insider team that helped lead to the rise of Barack Obama insists that they, and only they, know the path to victory. As the Times reports, Conservative Victory Project won’t merely protect incumbents – it will challenge sitting Congresspeople of the Tea Party variety…

The people who brought us No Child Left Behind, Medicare Part D, TARP, the GM bailout, Harriet Miers, etc., etc., etc. are really hacked off that people have been rejecting them. In 2012, about the only successful Republican candidates were the ones who directly rejected the legacy of these people.

So now they will up their game. They don’t like being shut out. They blame the tea party and conservatives for their failure to win primaries. They’ll now try to match conservatives and, in the process, call themselves conservatives.

I dare say any candidate who gets this group’s support should be targeted for destruction by the conservative movement. They’ve made it really easy now to figure out who the terrible candidates will be in 2014.

I’m struck by the deep sense of pain and disquiet that has penetrated the very core of our base. They are witnessing a rogue regime that is dismantling every aspect of this country they love so dearly – one limb at a time. They watch helplessly as a malevolent administration, which harbors no respect for our Founders and Constitution, works to destroy our free markets, saddles our children with incorrigible debt, infringes upon our liberties, assaults our family values, erases our borders, appeases our enemies, and abrogates the rule of law. Hence, they see the demise of our Republic, with only feeble resistance to those engendering the decline.

[…] Millions of Republican voters feel disenfranchised and voiceless as the pale-pastel figures in the party rise to the top levels of power. All they want is one party that is willing to take a stand and articulate their values – values which were considered commonsense until recent years.

Over the past few election cycles, a number of us have worked hard to find those few but strong voices in the wilderness. We have successfully elected people like Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, Rand Paul, and a number of congressmen who are committed to fighting for the values of our Republic. Yet, the old power players within the party will not go silently. They obdurately seek to quell any effort to restore the Republican Party as an effective voice for the values of our Republic.

Yes, it is not enough to merely nominate a conservative; we must also find candidates who are savvy, articulate, and have the organization to go the distance. But the minute we choose a candidate who is not conservative, we lose the election before a single vote is cast. Voters are attracted to a show of force and decisiveness; we will certainly never change hearts and minds if we nominate candidates who are indistinguishable from Democrats.

We are looking for one party that is willing to fight for the restoration of our Republic, not jettison every tenant of our Constitution under the false allurement of electoral success. One by one, people like Karl Rove seek to crush another sacred belief of the conservative base. All social issues? Gone. Enforcement before amnesty? No way. Stay strong on taxes? Forget about it. Fight Obamacare? That’s a done deal.

Folks, we must win back the soul of the Republican Party before we can affect any positive change.

According to a new Pew Research Center poll, the majority of Americans say the federal government threatens their personal rights.

The poll, conducted from Jan. 9th-13th among 1,500 adults, found that 53% of those surveyed think the federal government threatens their own personal rights and freedoms, the highest level found since Pew began polling on this subject in 1995. This outcome also represents the first time since Pew began polling that a majority of Americans saw the government as a threat. In March of 2010, 47% of those polled said that they viewed government as a threat to freedom.

The latest Pew survey also included questions about gun laws. Not surprisingly, given the current national controversy about gun control and Second Amendment rights, 62% of gun owners believe that the federal government poses a fundamental threat to their constitutional rights and freedom.

In addition, the survey found that, over the past two years, the percentage of conservative Republicans who view the government as a threat to freedom has jumped from 62% to 76%. 54% of conservatives consider government to be a “major threat” to their constitutional rights.

There is a good lesson here these days with so many politicians making political hay out of 20 young children and six educators gunned down in an elementary school last month. They want to use that horror to advance their own political agenda of disarming law-abiding citizens.

But it is important to remember that while they are talking about disarming you and me, they are not talking about disarming themselves. They will still be coddled in their fortresses. The closer you get to the Capitol, the more armed guards there are. Up close, there are bombproof guard shacks, literally, on every street corner. Squads of machine-gun carrying guards dot the magnificent marble buildingscape at all times.

Leaders in Congress ride around with escorts of huge armed men. Is that because what they do every day is more dangerous than what you and I do every day? Is that because their safety is more important than our safety? Or is it because they have figured out a way for suckers like you and me to pay for their security and so they don’t much care anymore about ours?

In a recent Sean Hannity program entitled, Boomtown, his 2 guests used the entire hour to show how corrupt Washington DC politics has become. “While one out of every 6 Americans wonder where their next meal is coming from, Washington DC has the highest rate of fine wine consumption in the United States,” said author Peter Schweizer of the Government Accountability Institute. Mr. Schweizer also pointed out that one out of four Americans has a mortgage that is underwater, while 7 out of 10 of the wealthiest counties in the nation are in the DC area. Furthermore, DC now has the highest per capita income in the US, recently passing Silicon Valley. How was this wealth created in a geographical area that doesn’t produce a product or create anything the public wants to purchase? Other boomtowns in our history became prosperous because they offered something to build upon. DC, however, offers nothing but connections to power and patronage. The result is a permanent political class invested in the growth of government as they grow their personal portfolios.

Bannon, the executive chairman of Breitbart News, said the best and the brightest now come to Washington because they see Washington as a Tammany Hall that will allow them to get rich off of influence peddling. He noted that Washington D.C. runs the equivalent of a $4 trillion private equity fund every year and essentially doles out 25% of the country’s wealth to those who are connected.

“Nobody has ever turned a camera on them,” Bannon said, indicating he intends to change that in the future. “This is a permanent political class that has now formed an aristocracy. That’s why nothing has changed in Washington.”

Bannon explained people arrive in Washington as country lawyers and then decide to “turn the business of government into a family business” by having their wives and kids work in lobbying.

“And this is how they become a permanent political class,” he concluded.

Hannity mentioned that Washington politicians “kick money back to family, friends, or people that hire them when they retire.”

And Schweizer concurred. He claimed the permanent political class is bipartisan and those who are a part of this permanent aristocracy either marry or are born into it.

Last year, Obama appointed three radical union hacks to the National Labor Relations Board to push a pro-union (and pro-Democrat) agenda. Knowing that they would never pass muster with the Senate, Obama declared that the Senate was in “recess” – when it clearly was not – and appointed them anyway, bypassing the constitutionally required vetting process.

Four days after President Obama pledged to “protect and defend the Constitution,” the U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that he violated that oath in making several appointments last year.

The court said Obama’s three “recess” appointments to the National Labor Relations Board weren’t recess appointments at all, since the Senate was still in session when he made them.

Assuming the Supreme Court upholds the panel’s ruling, all the decisions the board made over the past year will be nullified, since without those three there weren’t enough members on the board to make any rulings at all.

[…] Thankfully, there are still some judges around who see the virtue of protecting and defending our “messy” system, even if Obama and his sycophants don’t.

But the ruling has even broader constitutional significance, with the judges arguing that the president’s recess appointment powers don’t apply to “intra-session” appointments — those made when Congress has left town for a few days or weeks. They said Mr. Obama erred when he said he could claim the power to determine when he could make appointments.

“Allowing the president to define the scope of his own appointments power would eviscerate the Constitution’s separation of powers,” the judges said in their opinion.

The judges said presidents’ recess powers only apply after Congress has adjourned a session permanently, which in modern times usually means only at the end of a year. If the ruling withstands Supreme Court scrutiny, it would dramatically constrain presidents in the future.

And the court ruled that the only vacancies that the president can use his powers on are ones that arise when the Senate is in one of those end-of-session breaks. That would all but eliminate the list of positions the president could fill with his recess powers.

Mark Gaston Pearce, chairman of the National Labor Relations Board…indicated that the NLRB will attempt to continue on regardless:

The Board respectfully disagrees with today’s decision and believes that the President’s position in the matter will ultimately be upheld. It should be noted that this order applies to only one specific case, Noel Canning, and that similar questions have been raised in more than a dozen cases pending in other courts of appeals.

In the meantime, the Board has important work to do. The parties who come to us seek and expect careful consideration and resolution of their cases, and for that reason, we will continue to perform our statutory duties and issue decisions.

Pearce, in short, is indicating that the NLRB’s strategy is to act as if the court’s ruling that the appointments were unconstitutional somehow only applies only to the particular case that went before the Appeals Court and hope that the White House can get the Supreme Court to quickly review the case.

The NLRB does not get to disagree with a Federal Appeals Court. It has already overstepped its jurisdiction infinite number of times. Its opinion of an Appeal Court ruling is completely irrelevant. It does not get to narrowly define the meaning of that ruling. It does not get to stay in business and declare that it will go on doing exactly what it was doing before because it is confident that the Supreme Court will rule in its favor.

But in ObamaTime that is exactly how it works. Powers are seized and the propaganda press starts screaming that this is the way it should be. Obama unilaterally declares the Senate in recess and appoints union lawyers to the NLRB. The NLRB ignores an Appeals Court ruling and declares it will go on functioning.

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